silkie crests

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silkies4ever

silkies4ever

In the Brooder
12 Years
Sep 30, 2007
58
1
39
California
I was looking at the silkie picture topic and I am just in awe at the crest some of you guys have on your silkies!

I was wondering how do you get them to get that big? Is it in the breeding or the keeping? I have a white silkie who has a small crest and a black silkie who has an even smaller crest. I'm hoping that my little Keeta (one of my chicks) will have an amazing crest since his/her feet feathers have bloomed wonderfully and she/he is the fluffiest of the 4.

I am looking to show and I know the fluffier the better.
 
Crests are a genetic thing. Some of the best lines are bred to have large crests. I, unfortunately, have only pet quality, so they don't have a whole lot of crest to talk about.
hmm.png
 
Interesting post. They seems to be 2 ways to develop these crests as well, both through breeding choices of course.

1. is through increase the "vault" affect in the skull. However I have read posts that are diametrically opposed to this method. There is some real concern that a skull that has to much of a "vault" to it can be a health hazard .

2. Breeding Normal skulls or slightly vaulted skull birds with good crests, but culling birds with extremely vaulted skulls.


Personally , once I have enough breeding stock to begin culling chicks , I think I am going to try the 2nd method. I think simply because it seems to be more in line with the idea of "heritage" breeding program (maintaining the original bird stock)
 
I have a problem with silkie crests being so large. The APA standard calls for a medium sized crest, which is about the size of a hatchery birds crest. If you read the standard, polish have large crests, and so do sultans, not silkies. They look neat with the large crests but it is not to standard. Same with size, silkies are supposed to be bantams and small, alot of the silkies with large crests are the size of a standard bird by weight.
 
What about leg feathers? Are they too determined by genetics?

One of my silkie chicks has amazing feet feathers, they are larger and fuller than those even on my adult silkies.
 
Yes. You always want to breed the ones with better feathering. Depending on what you have, you may notice that some are better feathered than others. They're just like any other feather-legged breed.
 
FMP the way Glen See describe it to me when he judged the Canfield OH Show was proportion - the crest should be larger or smaller depending on the over-all build of the bird.
Especailly with my buffs I started using a cock from Joe Hadden which is a slimmer line-so the crest although large fit these bird types - A huge crest would make them look funny - and possibly be bad for vision. A crest should never be so large that the bird has reduced vision - Glen 's visual for me was picture pouring a class of water over the silkie the water should go even side to side not run off. I had to add some bulk to mine -My Buff girl won RV to Spolyd's BV
 
Ok, maybe it's just me, but is her crest small?

P1010008-1.jpg


d852c300.jpg


It's just a tad bigger in the second pic than it is in the first pic...Currently it is about the same size as it was in the second pic, perhaps just a tiny bit bigger, but not much.
 
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These are the "Aussie version!!"
They had haircuts so they could see, but they had nice round pom poms.
They also had 2 chicks under each of them, so cute, they were all one happy little family!
aunties.jpg
 
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